Cirvt1 ")
As a boy, he discerned that most
people "were all gentiles and that I
was Jewish, an outsider." His par-
ents, who possessed a strong cultural
Jewish identity, also were "careful
not to 'act Jewish' in ways that were
unattractive, like being too loud or
vulgar."
By the time Bean was an adult, he
no longer attended synagogue on Yom
Kippur. "I had this immense con-
sciousness of being Jewish, and yet I
had no idea what being Jewish was,"
he recalls.
"I was obsessed with who was
Jewish, and with the fact that I was
Jewish. And at the same time, I felt,
`Forget it. I don't want to live it. I'm
not even interested in it.'"
Enter his wife-to-be, Leora Barish,
the screenwriter of Desperately Seeking
Susan and the daughter of a
Conservative rabbi who'd spent his
career as an Army chaplain.
Early in their relationship, Bean
prompted arguments about religion.
"In some way, I was asking her to beat
me up and knock out of me the sort
of smug, aesthetic or agnostic or indif-
ferent or contemptuous stuffing [I
had]," he says. Barish helped him to •
learn a little Hebrew and to read the
Chumash.
Some years later, Bean, who now
attends a Conservative minyan and
keeps a kosher home, envisioned the
pivotal scene of The Believer, in which
the protagonist is renamed Danny
Balint. "The [character] goes into a
synagogue as a Nazi and - realizes he's
really a rabbi-manque," he says.
"He begins to hear the things he's
Traditional Passover
Dinner and
A La Carte Menu
kept himself from hearing. And yet
he's unwilling to give up his Nazism,
so he decides to practice both as if
they were contradictory religions. The
idea that you could try, however futile-
ly and catastrophically to be two
things at once, a living contradiction,
a thing and its opposite, was a magical
moment in my life. I had found the
conceit for some deep, visceral
thought I had never been able to
express before."
Bean was so obsessed with the idea
that he put up $500,000 of his own
money to make the movie, his directo-
rial debut. He changed the title to The
Believer after he discerned it would be
difficult to rent locations for a movie
called The Jewish Nazi.
When a friend wondered if the film
could appear to sympathize with a
racist - even be used as ammunition
by anti-Semites - Bean was quick to
reply. "To sympathize with some-
thing, to understand it is not to advo-
cate it," he says.
"We look at the suffering self-hatred
inflicts on [this character]. We see his
efforts to escape this. We see his
destruction. In one way or another, all
his anti-Semitic diatribes turn against
himself."
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248.855.9463
The Believer debuts 8 p.m.
Sunday, March 17, on Showtime.
It repeats 8 p.m. Wednesday,
March 20, and 8 p.m. Monday,
March 25.
We Only Use
Kosher Products
In The Preparation
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SPONGE CAKE (LOAF) SERVES 6-8 . . .n13.99
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1 Year Anniversary
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tion of Stone Cold Dead Serious at
the American Repertory Theatre and
a one-act play by another former
Michiganian, Brooke Berman, in
New York. She also has completed a
pilot for Baseball Wives, a proposed
dramatic series.
Reaser has heard strong pro and
con reactions to the film.
"-The Believer is about telling a
true story," she says. "It's not about
being politically correct."
F
r te.
ily feast
includes;
/0°.°1-ax
• Medium Pizza
w/cheese & 1 Item
• Salad
• 1/2 Broasted Italian Chicken
• 8 piece of Bambino Bread
• 1 liter of Pop
• (feeds 4-6)
Expires April 12, 2002.
Good at 6688 Orchard Lake Rd.
- Suzanne Chessler
Not good with any other offer or coupon.
I.
Elizabeth Reaser portrays Miriam:
This film 'delves into places that peo-
ple usually don't want to go."
• Home & Business Catering
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WIT
3/15
2002
73